


Somniferum

by Timemidae



Category: Babylon Berlin (TV)
Genre: Comfort in a strictly physical sense I'm afraid, Drug Use, Episode 2:08 or 1:16, Gapfill, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 02:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19736188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timemidae/pseuds/Timemidae
Summary: Gereon in hospital





	Somniferum

It’s harder than he would have expected, getting morphine in a hospital.

Not at first, of course. For the first day or so they keep him practically floating in it. It’s almost nice, actually, letting someone else handle it all, no secrecy, no shame, no wondering when he’d next have a chance, if he could keep it together until he found a moment’s privacy, no dread of what would happen if he didn’t. Just practical-faced women in white caps, guiding needles into his veins with brisk efficiency.

Actually, he doesn’t enjoy that part. He doesn’t remember much about the return trip from kilometer 127, and when he had first come back to himself--- found himself lying on a cot, helpless to prevent the familiar cold sting of a needle, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever gotten away from the Armenian and his companions, wasn’t sure what was real and what the nightmare. He’d struggled, weakly, but then the swoon had come, and that was good.

He’s never been shot before. Not in the line of duty. Not in the war. According to his service record and by all official accounts, Gereon Rath, by God’s Grace, came through the fighting entirely unscathed.

It’s not as bad as he thought it might be. The ward is quiet, and mostly he sleeps. The nurses dress in much the same way that Helga did when he first met her, and his waking interludes with them slip unobtrusively between his dreams. When he wakes, shivering and sweating, a nurse appears, takes his temperature, clucks her tongue, changes the sheets, and puts him back to bed. More medicine, he doesn’t even need to ask. No words are exchanged save the ones they mark on the clipboard at his feet.

They give him less and less, each day. Sometimes he has to ask, sometimes with words, but mostly with his eyes. He begins to think, about the cabinet behind the desk at the end of the ward, about the lock that he knows he can get past, about the sharp-eyed duty nurse, whom he knows he cannot, not without an explanation.

There are moments, in those quiet, gauzy days when he feels… temptation is not the correct word. It’s just that it makes sense: the hospital is where you go to rest. Could it be so bad? But they are only kind to him here because he’s injured, because they need to heal him, because when he is well their jobs will be done and theirs will be the satisfaction. If they find out that he isn’t ill, but broken, broken beyond their mending, everything will be different. Then they’ll have to keep him, though it will bring them little joy. He doesn’t want that, not really. There’s so much more he needs to do, out there.

And so, when the doctor, having come to manipulate his shoulder, frowns at his chart and says, “It’s healing well, I shouldn’t expect it to give you this much pain. Are you sure there’s nothing else the matter?” Gereon lies.


End file.
